Note pads and writing tablets are well known, but include numerous drawbacks and disadvantages. “Dry erase” tablets are a form of writing tablet popularly used at business meetings and such, in conjunction with a “dry erase” marker, wherein notes and diagrams can be made on the tablet's glossy and usually white face, and then completely and effortlessly removed with a simple wiping. Disadvantages of such tablets include their high cost to manufacture, heaviness, and lack of portability. As so far embodied, such tablets require either easels for support or hanging hardware for mounting to a wall and are not adaptable for simple and temporary affixation to such common household vertical surfaces as a refrigerator front, a kitchen cabinet, or even a wall, without using tools fastening hardware and causing installation damage. Hence, “dry erase” tablets are heretofore not practically capable of such household uses or uses in similar environments, and are not practical for simple movement from and adherence to one surface, and then another, as needed.
Magnet-backed devices, such as the notepad-including device described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,364,126, allow for temporary and removable affixation to refrigerator doors and similar ferritic surfaces. But their limitation to adherence to such ferritic surfaces reduces their usefulness, especially as even refrigerator doors are more frequently being made of non-ferritic materials. Such devices are also not sufficiently suggestive of such a note-taking capability, leaving potential note-takers scrambling to look for paper or such to write on without considering the capability of writing on the device.
Bound and loose-leaf notebooks are very popular and traditional items for recording notes. Few high school or college students are without a blank spiral-bound notebook at the start of a new course, waiting to be filled with course notes. While the outside “packaging” of such items vary greatly, including numerous designs and coverings, the appearance of the blank sheet of an opened bound or loose-leaf notebook is very familiar, and such an appearance invites and naturally suggests the purpose of note-taking. FIG. 5 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,682,248 shows a typical comb-bound notebook in such an open position. FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 2,252,783 shows a typical 3-ring loose-leaf notebook in such an open condition. Few would not immediately recognize that such a device in such a configuration is meant to be the recipient of written notes and reminders. Other notebooks are bound either permanently or in a refillable manner by such bindings as, but not limited to, various pluralities of openable or unopenable rings, helically-wound wiring, or tear-away spines. The key to the suggestion and invitation to use the device for note taking lies in the combination of at least a rectangular mostly-blank page with a hinge-type binding along the left or top edge.
There exists a need for improvement in the versatility of notepads, and such is an object of the present invention. There exists a need for added convenience in the use of notepads, and such is an object of the present invention. There exists a need for improved attachment to a variety of surfaces by notepads, and such is an object of the present invention. There exists a need for improved removal from those surfaces and reuse in notepads, and such is an object of the present invention. There exists a need for elimination of residue left when such notepads are removed from such surfaces, and such is an object of the present invention. There exists a need for a more suggestive appearance in such notepads to better suggest their intended use and invite such use, and such are objects of the present invention. Further needs and objects exist which are addressed by the present invention, as may become apparent by the included disclosure of an exemplary embodiment thereof.